You’d be surprised at how quickly your computer can get clogged with unnecessary junk. Whether it’s outdated downloads, unused programs or just messy folder structures, keeping things neat and organised will give you peace of mind.

Some clean-up tasks can be performed automatically and others might need to be run as a one-off. Not only will you be able to free up space on your hard drive, but you may see performance enhancements and find your PC easier to navigate.

Please be sure to pop into the comment section afterwards and share your own tips on how we can stop our systems piling up with rubbish.

On top of duplicates, you might also have data that is similar. This could take the form of text documents that differ only in a few lines or images that have minor alterations. Providing you don’t need these for version purposes, it’s time to give your drive a clean and tidy up your folders.

Clear Out Your Browser

You are creating data and being tracked every time you visit a website, unless you’ve told your browser to behave otherwise. Amongst other information, cookies are used to store your preferences and your browser will track the sites you visit in order to create a list of all your history.

That same guide will also detail how to set it up so that your history is deleted automatically when you close your browser. You may find that inconvenient, especially if you rely on your URL bar to find previous websites visited, but security-minded folk will appreciate it.

Uninstalling Programs

Have you ever gone through your installed programs and wondered why you installed some of them? If you can’t remember the last time you used them then it’s probably best that you uninstall them and clear some space. In fact, it might be that some of those programs are automatically launching on boot and slowing down your system.

There are a number of effective ways to remove programsHow to Uninstall Programs on Windows 8How to Uninstall Programs on Windows 8Looking to get a particular program off your computer? Whether it's a desktop or a modern app, here's how to do that on Windows 8.Read More. Perform a system search for uninstall a program, select the relevant option and you’ll be taken to the built-in Windows facility. All you need to do is click a program on the list, press the Uninstall button and then follow the wizard. In order to get a better sense of what it might be good to remove, click the Installed On or Size column headers and work your way down the list.

Automatically Delete Your Downloads

Your downloads folder is likely a prime culprit for containing files that you don’t need anymore. Whether it’s installers, zipped files or just throwaway pictures, most of us will take any important data from our downloads folder and store it elsewhere, leaving unneeded data behind, or they’ll use a utility like the one mentioned above to do so!

Spring Clean

It’s easy for your computer to get bogged down with useless junk quickly and no-one wants to have their hard drive wasting away storing pointless data. Follow our tips above and you’ll be well on your way to keeping things tidy.

Not only will decluttering your system get rid of the excess data, it’ll also free up space on your hard drive and make your folders easier to navigate.

Do you use any of these methods regularly? Do you have any of your own system cleansing tips to share?

to keep my downloads folder under control, once I use an installer or unpack a zip file I move these source files to a 'pending offload' folder that I will later move to an external drive every couple of months. Once or twice a year I will go thru the external archive weeding out all but the last 2 versions of program installers that I can use to re-install if a program gets corrupted.

I vaguely remember some of the items mentioned here when I once had a MicroSUCKS OS.
I have a Mac desktop now and most every night run the app called “CleanMyMac.” Occasionally will check my Safari browser to remove unnecessary/unwanted cookies, and will uninstall old downloaded programs. Average between 300-400 MB’s of accumulated junk using “CleanMyMac.” So far.....so good !

With (relatively) massive hard drives redundant data (for most office work) isn't much of a problem. I routinely backup to date I'm pretty sure will no longer be needed to blu-ray disks and catalog those (I use SuperCat but there are lots of alts). TreeSize Free is a great program for drilling down and letting you know what's taking up all your space (sometimes it's surprising that a little utility like ERUNT can take up GB's of space if you don't clean out old registry backups once in awhile). Programs, for me, are the real disk hogs. It's hard to beat RevoUninstaller for program listing and removal. Also, in Windows 7, running 'Disk Cleanup' can find many GBs of updates, patches, service packs, that can almost always be removed without problem (I've seen it remove 20GB's on a lot of machines). Never do anything without having backups guys.. this is an elementary school level need for everyone.. I use TrueImage but lots of alts here too..

People who are organized will tell you that the best way is to just be organized in the first place. I keep about 40TB (that is not a typo) of media content sorted, synchronized and duplicated. I am able to do that because I gave a lot of thought to how I need to keep that content so that I can most easily find it.

As I add files, my rule is that nothing I want to keep goes anyplace but a semi-permanent destination. I don't save anything in my home directory and I'd never keep anything on my desktop that I'm not willing to delete five minutes later. I do establish specific Incoming folders for data that I know I'll need to interact with before it can be put where it needs to go (e.g. to match a previously established naming convention or to ensure metadata is correct) and I do take some time to clean those folders out every week, but sorting as I go along is a lot easier than doing any amount of cleanup after the fact.

Joe started writing about technology when he was far too young and hasn't stopped. He spends most of his time obsessing over computer software and hardware, and loves talking about himself in third person. Ask me about Loom.